Thursday, August 27, 2009

Josiah's First Trip to the Dentist

Josiah is usually not one for new things, and so I was a little afraid to take him to the dentist for the first time. At our dentist, they usually do a "happy visit" where they just familiarize the child with the various instruments and procedures and then typically they will schedule another visit to do all the dental work. I wasn't sure if he would cooperate, but told him about the treasure chest of toys they had for him to pick from if he was a good patient and also read him a book about what to expect at the dentist. When he went in, he was acting a bit shy with the hygenist, but seemed OK. She asked if we would want to try for X-rays and I said we could see and we asked Josiah and he said he would. It took a little bit of work, but they got a full range of X-rays and the good news is there are NO cavities! Yeah! Thankfully, his teeth have more spaces between them right now and I think that helps with not getting cavities than if they were closer together.

Then much to my surprise Josiah allowed his teeth to be cleaned as well! She showed him "Mr. Sucky Straw" which he was scared to put in his mouth, but he was allowed to suck up water in a cup to see how it worked. She also had this fun game where she would say, "I see a kitty cat sugar bug back there that I need to get...open wide!!" and then he would open big. She also said there was a rainbow sugar bug, a green sugar bug and a dinosaur. Josiah was very concerned that she get all the various bugs out of his mouth and I discovered later that he was scared that there were more monsters in his mouth after she was finished.

I can't remember what he was saying here, but he had something important to tell her! At the end, she had him use the straw to spit, but he wouldn't close his mouth with it in there and ended up spitting all over his bib instead. She resorted to having him spit in a cup since he was scared of the straw. Also she flossed his teeth and apparently the mint flavor "burned his tongue" and he was very concerned and started to cry really loudly. She gave him some water to drink and tried to calm him down. Then we were going to do this flouride treatment, which is basically just brushing his teeth with the flouride toothpaste and then him spitting it out, but by that stage he was too worked up and wanted to leave. The dentist came in and tried to look at his teeth visually, but he was too upset and crying, so he was OK with just looking at the X-rays, which were great! Overall, I was SO proud of how cooperative he was and how much we got accomplished on the first visit! He got to pick THREE prizes from the treasure box for being so brave and good. It was a treat to watch the whole thing and I felt so sorry for him afterward when he was crying. He told me later and is still "worried" that there might be monsters in his teeth. I told him that was all for pretend and there really wasn't monsters, and so I think he gets that now, but we shall see if it comes up again.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Our First Family Trip with the Twins!!

My parents invited our family to come to the Cannon Beach, OR area with them this summer for a few days and it was our first longer family trip with all our little ones! The boys did pretty good in the car for the most part and with naps taken and some stops along the way it was pretty painless. I also managed to finish the afghan I had been working on for our house, which was nice too. The above shot is of the boys being transported back down to the lobby of the hotel in the luggage rack. They enjoyed riding on it when it was around.
This is a shot of us on the beach the first day that we arrived in Seaside. It was quite a trek from the hotel to the water line through lots of sand. Daniel was NOT happy about getting sand in his sandals at first and did not want to walk in it. Caleb on the other hand starting running gleefully in the sand headed toward the water right away. My mom and I had to take Daniel's hands and help him along and finally he started to get used to it. Once he started digging with the shovels, he was happier too.
David took both Caleb and Josiah out to meet the bigger waves. At first, both Caleb and Josiah would run toward the waves, but when the foam started coming toward their feet, they would run away. At one point, Josiah ran away and fell down in the water and got his shirt wet. He DOES NOT like to have his shirt wet and at home he changes it even if there is a tiny bit of water on it. In this case, he just took his shirt off instead of wear the wet one. Caleb was definitely the fearless twin and enjoyed following Daddy around sloshing in the water and getting as wet as he could!
On the second day, we went to the Cannon Beach area and played there. We were going to head over to Haystack Rock, but where we ended up parking was a bit of a distance from it, so we decided against trying to get over there and just played in this little area with some water instead. Some boys there were building a little dam and Josiah happily joined in. When the dam was leaking in various spots, the older boy would shout, "Red Alert, red alert" and all the littler boys would run over to the spot and build it up with mud and rocks. David joined in with Josiah to help as well. Josiah LOVED playing in this way and was having a blast!

This is another picture of the first day in Seaside where Grandma and Grandpa are watching the boys discover their shovels. On on of the nights, Grandma and Grandpa watched the kiddos while David and I went to a fancy restaurant for dinner. We honeymooned in Cannon Beach, so it was fun to go back there and reminisce and eat at a place we enjoyed then called, "The Wayfarer."
Here is one of Daniel's first reactions to being on the beach. He was not happy to have sand on his hands!

Caleb boy is just sloshing through the water here as you can see. It was hard to get a still shot of him as he was always on the move looking for new things to explore. He was following Daddy and Josiah around as they were searching for sand dollars and treasures of the sea. As a side note, the first night in the hotel we had to endure this lovely DJ'd dance for a High School Reunion from about 7pm-11pm. Caleb kept waking up and screaming when the bass boomed through our room and it was a rough night. Thankfully, the second night was quiet and we all slept much better. Thanks Mom and Dad for the gift of the hotel room, we made some fun memories!

Sunday, August 09, 2009

Celebrating our 6th Anniversary!!!

I had the priviledge today to celebrate the anniversary of marrying the man of my dreams! :) We actually went to dinner the night before our anniversary, but we had lots of fun reminiscing about the wedding day on Sunday as well. We went to dinner at Mama Stortini's, one of our favorite restaurants. They serve the most delicious Italian food and we both just LOVE it! It has a nice atmosphere too and isn't super expensive, which is nice. On Sunday, David was teaching in our class and a gal in the class brought a cake for our anniversary as well as a nice card and wrote it up on the board for all to see. David whispered to me around 12:00 noon (during the 3rd service) that it was right about now he was getting ready to marry his beautiful bride. And then on the way home, we remembered and laughed at how we were pronounced, "Mr. and Mrs. David Walker" by accident. We had some great laughs over that one for sure. Next weekend, we will be taking the family to Seaside, OR and will revisit some of our old haunts from our honeymoon as well. We spent a week in Cannon Beach for our honeymoon. My parents are coming too and will help watch the kids one night, so we can have a dinner alone as well, which will be fun. I am looking forward to seeing the kids at the beach, I think they will enjoy it and I plan to take LOTS of pictures!

I love you SO MUCH sweetheart! Happy SIX YEARS!!

I had to include this shot of our little adventurous boy, Caleb. He and Daniel have discovered that it is GREAT fun to play in these various piles of dirt that are found in our back yard. I have since had to cover the biggest piles with the swimming pool to keep them from constantly getting dirty throughout the day. The other "fun" thing I have to deter them from is eating rotten cherries, plums, and apples that fall from our trees onto the ground. I tell them, "Blech, blech...drop it!!!" Caleb doesn't drop his, but rather proudly waves them at me to show he still has them. Um....yeah. The apples are the grossest by far as they are rather large this year and pretty much fall off the tree rotten or picked apart by the birds. Today I picked all the apples up and then brought the twins in the house to have their OWN clean apple to eat and that helped keep them from going back outside for a while.